The Dossier: John Kerry shills for the Iranian regime; a possible second Trump-Kim summit?

Should John Kerry be prosecuted for conducting “shadow diplomacy” with Iran’s terrorist regime?

A case can certainly be made that former Secretary of State John Kerry may have violated the law in conducting rogue diplomacy with the Iranian regime, Michael Rubin, a foreign policy expert at the American Enterprise Institute, contends over at the Washington Examiner.

“If Kerry wants to criticize Trump for walking away from the JCPOA, he is free to do so. And if he wants to plot and plan with Zarif, he can register as a foreign agent on behalf of Iran,” Rubin writes.

“But he should not remain above the law. To allow him to do so sets a horrible precedent for any future administration, for American democracy, and for coherence of U.S. policy. It is time both Kerry and the Justice Department understood that.”

President Trump has castigated the former secretary of state, describing his actions as “illegal.”

New York Times publishes certifiably fake news about U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley

On Thursday evening, the New York Times posted a hit piece on U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, claiming that she has accumulated lavish expenditures during her tenure and pointing to $50,000+ curtains at her official residence as proof. The one problem, as Haley’s spokesman notes in the piece, is that the expensive curtain purchase was made during the Obama administration.

Haley: No more U.S. dollars, assistance for anti-U.S. countries, organizations

While the New York Times was busy dropping its hit piece on Nikki Haley, the U.N. ambassador was articulating how the Trump administration intends to deal with adversarial regimes and to dish out foreign aid.

“We’re not going to support dictators, we are no longer going to give money to people who are against the U.S. or say ‘Death to America.’ Or do anything that would be anti-U.S.,” Haley said in an interview with Fox News.

China continues propping up Venezuelan regime

As Venezuela’s economic and political crises spiral out of control, the Nicolas Maduro regime appears to be counting on help from abroad to keep the authoritarian government in Caracas in control of the country.

The autocratic Venezuelan president is on a four-day trip to China, hoping to secure an economic lifeline from Beijing, Reuters reports.

“Over a decade, China ploughed more than $50 billion into Venezuela through oil-for-loan agreements that helped China secure energy supplies for its fast-growing economy while bolstering an anti-U.S. ally in Latin America,” the report adds.

Russia makes power play near Alaska, holds massive war games

Russian warships are staging large-scale drills in the Bering Sea, the North Pacific body of water that separates Russia from Alaska.

Footage from the Kremlin’s Ministry of Defense showed huge amounts of military apparatus and some 300,000 soldiers staging drills in the area, which are due to take place until September 17.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was there Thursday to oversee the war games, according to Reuters.

A Trump-Kim summit in NYC this month?

There’s still an outside chance that President Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un will meet for the second time, at the end of this month, on the sidelines of the annual U.N. General Assembly meetings in New York City.

Talks between the United States and North Korea have almost entirely fizzled out since the first Trump-Kim summit, which took place in June in Singapore.

The White House was once very optimistic about the prospect of the Korean Peninsula’s full denuclearization. But now, top administration officials are very skeptical about Pyongyang’s commitment to the cause.

Author’s note: This post originally appeared in CRTV’s The Dossier newsletter. For foreign policy news and views delivered to your inbox twice a week, subscribe here or use the form below!

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Author: Jordan Schachtel

Jordan Schachtel is the national security correspondent for Conservative Review and editor of The Dossier for Blaze Media. Follow him on Twitter @JordanSchachtel.